While wandering through CCCamp last weekend, in between episodes of forcing Marmite on the unwary, I ran into the well-known Hackaday.io user [Prof. Fartsparkle]. In a last-minute sprint leading up to the con he built himself the Numberwang badge to join in the colorful after-dark festivities with beautiful board artwork and remarkably enjoyable backlit LED display.

The Numberwang badge itself is a clone of the Adafruit Itsy Bitsy sporting an ATSAMD21G18 CPU and running CircuitPython. It has an LED strip on the reverse shining through the bare FR4 as a diffuser, and the Numberwang effect of selecting random numbers is achieved by a host of random touchable numbers sprinkled across its front. For something he freely admits was a last minute project, we think he’s done a pretty good job!

For those mystified by Numberwang, it is a fictional gameshow from a BBC TV comedy programme that involves contestants answering the quizmaster with random numbers. It joins a rich tradition of such hilarious nonsense, and has as a result become cult television.

If you’re really getting into Numberwang, don’t forget that it’s inspired a programming language.

Continue reading “The Numberwang Badge Brought Cheer To CCCamp 2019” →